A/N: Unlike the others, this doesn't really fit into the humor category…d'you think sap would count as one?
Drabble Eight
All Grown Up
"Jeeze, Jazz, what did you fill these things with, rocks?" Danny questioned, trying to lighten up the mood a little. His sister was going off to college, far away to Stanford in California. It'd been a hard choice for her, to move so far away from home, but after much prodding from her family, she finally decided that she would go pursue her dream, regardless of the distance.
"Books." she replied simply, still caught up in the fuzzy haze of disbelief. When she'd been going over possible schools, buying tickets for the plane ride there, even packing, none of it had seemed real. But now here she was, waiting in the airport terminal, about to leave home forever.
She didn't know how she should be feeling. Happy? Sad? Or some odd little mixture of both? She'd wanted to go to Stanford her entire life, and had been overjoyed upon receiving her acceptance letter, but now she was having second thoughts. At the moment, she wanted nothing more than to cry into her mother's shoulder like she did when she was little, but decided against it; she was an adult now, and had to act like one.
Danny, too, was having trouble dealing with the situation. Jazz was going away, his big sister was going to leave and never truly come back home again. As much as he may have hated to admit it, he loved her, he was used to having her around, and he didn't want her to go.
But even stranger was how it put his own future in perspective. Soon enough, he'd be out of high school, frantically sending off application letters like Jazz had done a few months before. In just a short while, that'd be him preparing to board the next flight, and he'd be the one to fly away and never come home.
Finally realizing the gravity of the situation, he wondered, "How does she deal with it?"
The parents weren't taking it very well either. Their oldest child was all grown up, perfectly capable of defending herself and making her way in the big bad world. She didn't need them anymore, and it left a hollow sensation in their stomachs, a sick, bitter taste in their mouths.
But at the same time, it meant they'd succeeded. They'd raised a wonderful daughter who'd matured into an intelligent young woman, now ready to take on every challenge life had to throw at her and prove what she was made of. Their daughter was going off to change the world, and they couldn't be more proud.
On all sides, it was bittersweet, leaving the comfortable sense of familiarity behind and embracing change, a new future. But Jazz knew that she could take on whatever was ahead, and her family knew not to worry (too much) for her.
She was all grown up now, after all.
